/usr/bin/appstreamcli:5:g_variant_new_parsed_va:g_variant_builder_add_parsed:as_content_rating_to_variant:as_component_to_variant:as_cache_file_save
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
appstream (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Unassigned | ||
Bionic |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Olivier Tilloy |
Bug Description
The Ubuntu Error Tracker has been receiving reports about a problem regarding appstream. This problem was most recently seen with package version 0.12.2-2, the problem page at https:/
If you do not have access to the Ubuntu Error Tracker and are a software developer, you can request it at http://
This crash happens when trying to upgrade a fully up-to-date bionic machine to cosmic. appstreamcli crashes with the following error, thus aborting the upgrade process:
E:Problem executing scripts APT::Update:
[Impact]
* As of today, users upgrading from bionic to cosmic will see the upgrade process abort early on because of this crash. This is most likely caused by malformed appstream metadata, so the issue might go away if that metadata is fixed at some point. In the meantime, this completely prevents bionic→cosmic upgrades.
* The fix is upstream (https:/
[Test Case]
1. On a fresh bionic installation, change bionic to cosmic in sources.list
2. Run apt update
This use case happens when the user does a release upgrade.
[Regression potential]
This patch affects the way appstream metadata is parsed to build a representation in memory. Potential regressions may happen if the parser is fed invalid/malformed metadata with unexpected types. That's actually the cause of the crash itself, so we cannot assume that it won't happen again with differently malformed metadata.
There doesn't appear to be specific tests associated to that crash in the upstream commit that fixes it, so there's no guarantee it won't regress in the future.
[Other Info]
According to errors.ubuntu.com the crash still happens in cosmic with appstream 0.12.2-2, which would imply that the patch does not fix all occurrences of the problem.
However according to Laney this data is not always accurate, sometimes crashes which happen around an upgrade are reported against the new version mistakenly.
description: | updated |
Changed in appstream (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
status: | Confirmed → Triaged |
tags: | added: rls-cc-incoming |
tags: |
added: rls-bb-incoming removed: rls-cc-incoming |
description: | updated |
Changed in appstream (Ubuntu Bionic): | |
importance: | Undecided → High |
description: | updated |
Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.